Victim Four asked why he didn't go to police

Victim 4 describes how 'game' turned into abuse. Sandusky plans to tell his side of story under oath.

BELLEFONTE, Centre County — Their smiling faces loomed over Jerry Sandusky as a state prosecutor delivered the opening shots Monday in the retired Penn State football coach's child sex-abuse trial.

The 68-year-old Sandusky, seated at the defendant's table, gazed up at childhood photos of his accusers projected onto a large screen in the Centre County courtroom as Senior Deputy Attorney General Joseph E. McGettigan III described the young men and the alleged abuse they suffered.

"One is a father himself now. Two are recent high school graduates. One is a Penn State graduate. One serves his country in Afghanistan, in a war zone," McGettigan said. "Their experiences with the defendant are as varied as they are."

Defense attorney Joe Amendola signaled that his client would take the witness stand to give his side of the story.

Later in the day, the first of Sandusky's accusers, identified in court papers as Victim 4, testified for nearly four hours in explicit detail about his relationship with the former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator.

The man, now 28 with his own young son, and a native of Snow Shoe Township, Centre County, testified he started hanging out with Sandusky after his second summer in camp for disadvantaged children. Speaking matter-of-factly, he told how their relationship progressed from playing sports together and "soap fights" in the locker room shower to forced oral sex.

"I kind of looked at Jerry as a father figure because I didn't have anyone else, but he was nice to me other than the things that he did, and I didn't want to lose that," the man said, explaining under cross-examination why he didn't report the alleged abuse.

But the man made clear that he wasn't enthusiastic about telling his story, explaining how he walked a line between cutting off contact with Sandusky and spending just enough time with him to avoid raising suspicion among friends and his father.

"I wouldn't even be here right now if I thought that I was the only person," the man said. "But now I find out this has been going on over and over and over again, so I feel responsible. Maybe this wouldn't have happened if I said something."

Of Sandusky's 10 alleged victims, eight who have been identified by investigators are expected to testify during the trial, which is set to go on for two to three weeks.

Some of Sandusky's victims were abused for years — subjected to forced oral and anal sex — while others suffered only one or two episodes of abuse, McGettigan said during his opening.

Each met Sandusky through his charity for disadvantaged children, The Second Mile, which McGettigan described as "the perfect environment for a predatory pedophile," where he could "glide through an extensive pool of potential victims."

The victims, McGettigan said, didn't come forward because they felt fear, humiliation and shame, words that the prosecution displayed in large black block letters on the courtroom screen.

"These three things combine to create silence. Years of silence," McGettigan said.

Amendola said his client would explain that in his world, it was routine for people to shower together and that he never sought sexual gratification while doing so.

Amendola also compared building a defense in the case to scaling Mount Everest, with only seven months to respond to the evidence generated by a three-year state police and attorney general's office investigation.

Amendola pointed out weaknesses in the state's case, such as testimony by Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary.

According to a state grand jury presentment, McQueary said he saw Sandusky having anal sex with a boy in the locker room of Penn State's football training center. McQueary later testified at a preliminary hearing that he did not see penetration.

In a court filing earlier this year, prosecutors changed the date they say the sex occurred from March 2002, as originally stated in the grand jury presentment, to February 2001.

Amendola said a friend of McQueary's father, Dr. Jonathan Dranov, will testify that he asked McQueary three times whether he saw sex and then concluded McQueary was making an assumption about what he saw.

"We don't think Michael McQueary lied," Amendola said. "What we think is that he saw something and made assumptions."

Amendola also questioned Dranov's and Dr. John McQueary's advice to his son to go to Penn State head coach Joe Paterno.

"That's not the kind of advice I would give someone who just saw Jerry Sandusky having sex with a 10-year-old boy in a shower," Amendola said.

Amendola also worked to sow the seeds of conspiracy in jurors' minds, noting that at least six of Sandusky's accusers have attorneys representing them in threatened civil lawsuits, a point he hammered home during his cross-examination of Victim 4.

"We believe the evidence will show at least one of these young men had an attorney before they ever talked to the attorney general in this case," Amendola said. "We believe these young men have financial incentives."